Day Two: Paradise At Last!

Wow! We both slept until 9:30! We discovered that when you are that tired, jet lag doesn’t seem to be a problem! We went down to the pool where Mrs. Moustakis had cooked us a delicious breakfast including a Greek dish made with scrambled eggs and zucchini, potato pancakes, fresh fruit and hot tea! “Ahh, this is the life!” We enjoyed a view of the ocean on one side and the pool on the other. Sigh, the long journey was definitely worth it!

We went to the beach for a long walk. We enjoyed amazing views of the water as we ambled over rocks and hills, through a beautiful cedar forest, which is considered the most beautiful in all of Greece, then back down to long stretches of deserted beach, a true island paradise! ……..until……. “What’s that I see? Jordan, that man walking down the beach doesn’t have any clothes on!”

 “Oh, Grandma,” says she, all cool and oh so grown up, “That’s just how they do it here!”

 “Oh, oh, I can’t look, let’s just pretend we’re looking at your phone until they walk by.” “EWWWWW, he made sure to walk right by us, just as close as he could, EWWWW! Fortunately there was a nice private area just ahead where we laid down our towels so that we could do a little sunbathing of our own. Sure enough, though, some people came along, and set up further down the beach…….proceeding to…….REMOVE ALL THEIR CLOTHES! “I can’t believe it, can’t they afford bathing suits in this country?” I have been to topless beaches in Thailand and Mexico before, but never before to places where both men and women sunbathed completely in the buff. As we were leaving the beach, we passed a sign that said “nudism is forbidden.” I guess that some people just can’t read!

 

We ended up renting a car for the rest of our stay here, as we are a very long way from town, and there is no public transit this far out. We had a great time exploring, getting lost and turned around many times, as the roads do not have names, but just signs that point to the next town. Since we weren’t real sure which towns we were going to, we made a lot of wrong turns. Fortunately, Jordan shares the same sense of adventure that I do, and we had as much fun going the wrong way as we did when we finally got going in the right direction!

The only problem we had was when we were leaving the town of Naxos after eating supper, and we were wondering why people were honking at us, as we weren’t doing anything wrong, or so we thought. Finally, a woman stood out in the middle of the street, flagging us down. She came up to the window and explained with hand signs and very broken English that we should turn around, “or the police,” and she pantomimed writing a ticket. “Oh no”, I exclaimed in surprise, “this is a one way street!” Hmmm, tough when you don’t know how to read Greek!”

We did go and see the Temple of Apollo today. This is built right in the port, and it is the first thing people see when they arrive on the island. Apollo, the god of sun and light, is an appropriate symbol of this island, as it is just so very beautiful. This temple was started in the early fifth century, but has largely fallen into ruin, with many of the stones carried away over time and used in building the Kastro or castle in the 13^th century, which is situated in the town just above.